today is.... have we forgotten???

[clutchdust]

i see no threads about it.
today (june 6) in 1944 many of our fathers and grandfathers turned the tied of the war against the third reich. in addition to the thousands of men who fought and died to break through the murderous fire of the nazi defenses, hundreds of thousands of men and women around the world worked behind the lines to build and supply the men on the front lines with the tools they needed to liberate europe, and probably the world, from tyranny.

 

[1Michel]

no I didn' forget, my grand father was one of the surviving fighters in Normandy.

He and 2 of his brothers were there and he told us the story about how terryfiing it was.

Roland Brunet was his name.

 

[mrvette]

Surely many wings of a family unknown are buried all over Europe now, entire town we try to trace history from, unknown on modern maps.....we figger the killing fields cleaned house....

My uncle was a civil engineer who followed Patton, he never discussed the matter due to ill health, heart condition....war stress?? who knows.....

My father taught marksmanship to GI's some snipers at Camp Perry Ohio....I have a pix of him and his company 1923...when he was outta basic....age 18....

Except for the European side of the family that did not make it across the pond, our immediate family survived fairly well over that, but as a little kid I remember the trips to the cemetery every memorial day....from DC to Cleveland Ohio, and the services and salutes....

Have two relatives by marriage in Arlington, was just down the street from where I lived....

 

[JPhil]

No I haven't forgotten at all.

Each year on this day (and Armistace Day and many other days as well,) I think of my father-in-law who got wet up to his armpits wading ashore on this day so long ago. He walked halfway to Berlin before the landmine that killed his buddy (who his son is named after) put him in the field hospital....And from there, through the trails life leads us through, he got in a snowball fight with a cute French girl....And they had a little girl, whom I am now married to.

And I think of my own father too, who only heard of the events of June 6 a day or two later, while sitting in a canvas tent awaiting his flight orders on a sweltering coral island in the South Pacific.....And an uncle who heard about it on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, and another uncle & also my sister's father-in-law who each learned of it in North Africa before taking off in their B-24s on missions across Europe...And my across-the-street neighbor who spent a Christmas in the woods near a little town called Bastogne....And another uncle who heard about it while living in Los Alamos, New Mexico, working an a project he could not talk about.....

And I must say I also think of the father of one of my best friends from school days, an Austrian who was drafted into the wehrmacht and captured by the Russians on the Eastern Front. He managed to escape & get home to Germany where he married his sweetheart who had survived the bombings of Dresden & the capture of Berlin. They came to America to begin a new life, and their son Bernie was my best friend.

And then there's my mother, a young woman scared, as were my grandmothers & grandfathers and all the others at home, where ever home was....

 

[whinny]

nope, not forgotten here in new zealand, my grandfather served in the army and was a P.O.W in germany.
He would never talk about the war though
Russ

 

[mrvette]

JPhil, your note reminded me, I knew a fellow contractor in DC that was married to a gal I went to HS with.....he was German born and his older brother was in the hitler youth....I stared at Dieter when he said that, he grinned and said, well someone had to be....I forget how he got over here, lots of GIs married European women....some with kids already.....I know a kid I went to school was European born...mom married a GI....

:beer:

 

[C6Z51]

Thank you veterans!

Thank you again for all you have done and all you do to make our freedom possible.

 

[BRUTAL64]

Of course, I didn't forget.